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Don't see them taking my water offerings

Just looking for some insight here. It has been super hot here in the area the last few days. I have a small water source right in front of the hives that they seemed to have been visiting, an additional bird bath with stones near the hives that I had seen them taking water from in the past. In the last few scorching hot days, I have only seen wasps and yellow jackets taking water from my sources and none of my bees! What the heck? There is a small man-made pond on the property behind us, but that is a football field away! Why don't they like my water? I had seen them taking it at the same time as the wasps from the same source before, so I am not inclined to believe that they are scaring them off.

Re: Don't see them taking my water offerings

I have a salt water pool that the bees love. It has solar cover so it is a perfect landing platform for them. I've started an experiment to get them out of the pool. I filled 2 five gallon buckets with the salted pool water and placed them closer to the bees. We will see if they take the bait....

Re: Don't see them taking my water offerings

I have found that dirty water with some debris works the best. I actually have a sort of bog set up on the edge of my herb garden where there is plenty of twigs, mud and wet sand for them to suck through. All this is positioned about 40 or so feet from the hive. I once read somewhere (not sure if it was here) that bees actually prefer to suck water through sand and damp soil.

Re: Don't see them taking my water offerings

I put an old chicken watered in front of my hive and there are lots of bees on it. I have a leaky faucet by my dog pen and kids pool for my black lab that has 10 or so bees every time I'm around. I haven't asked my neighbors if they have bees around their pool( and I'm not going to). I put lemongrass oil in the chicken watered initially and cant tell if it helped there are more every day and I stopped it a week ago

Re: Don't see them taking my water offerings

The salt has really helped. NatureCoast, what you've said about them liking to suck up from a "dirty" source totally makes sense, because I saw one of my girls sucking up from a nasty coconut fiber welcome mat we keep by our grill yesterday morning after we had a storm roll through the night before. I think I may make some cool root-bound mess for them to source their water from & may even keep it salty! Thanks all!

Re: Don't see them taking my water offerings

Chicken waterers work fine, but remember that bees can't swim. We put rounded river-rocks, about the size of a large coin, in the trough to create "shallow water which never runs dry." The bees can land on the rocks and sip water. (The waterers must be placed perfectly level so that it doesn't drip out.) The waterers are in cool shade a short distance away. Within a few days the bees had discovered them.

Re: Don't see them taking my water offerings

Yup, do believe they like swamp water better. One thing I did do for the bird bath is fill it with rocks and 2 sticks. Mostly to stop the birds from using it as a bird bath and splashing all the water out. It's in the sun over half the day, but the bees use it all day long.
I did buy 4 cat litter trays and a bag of rocks, they sit on the ground. They stay full of leaves, sticks and grass cliipings -the water is nasty, --- but the bee's love it.

Re: Don't see them taking my water offerings

have a pond on the other side of house from bees they use all the time. After a bad alga bloom in spring I installed a UV sterilizer the water is clear and I feel much better about them drinking this which I know is bacteria and virus free. got a few water lettuce they land on and drink from all day.

Re: Don't see them taking my water offerings

We use an old steel water tank cut in half. We float a big piece of cedar in it with a piece of burlap laying across the wood to wick water up. It took them a little while to come to it, but they seem to like the burlap.

Re: Don't see them taking my water offerings

Read somewhere, maybe in BeeSource, that bees cannot share location/distance information to other bees if the water is less than 10ft from the hive. If that's true (and I don't know if it is), then only those bees which happen to find the water will actually use it. You might consider moving the water source further away.

Ditto on 'smelly' water and on the burlap comments. I use burlap and they can land on the burlap and draw water through the fabric wo drowning.

Re: Don't see them taking my water offerings

All tips were great. I don't know where they were before, but they are definitely sticking around more. I found that metal is good, enticing them with lemongrass oil and a bit of salt! Got a chicken water bucket (also with a few drops of lemongrass oil). It's working!! Thanks all. I think next year or even in fall we'll do a water feature for them.